Social influences on small area housing choices: Econometric evidence and implications for land use policy

Wed 9 October 2019

Mill Lane Lecture Rooms

This paper explores behavioural drivers of housing demand, focussing on the impact of herding and other social influences on housing choices, and their impact on spatial patterns of housing demand. Econometric evidence is presented which captures persistence divergences in housing demand across small areas in the UK 1995-2016. Policy lessons are explored, including implications for land use policy when social influences exacerbate persistent regional divergences, contributing to uneven patterns of housing demand and urban density trends.

Michelle is a behavioural economist – specialising in the analysis of social influences and behavioural public policy. She applies key insights from behavioural economics across a range of fields including behavioural macroeconomics, housing and infrastructure, financial decision-making, energy and water, and cyber-security. She has been a research investigator on research projects funded by the ESRC, EPSRC and the Leverhulme Trust, most recently the RELIEF (Refugees, Education, Learning and Entrepreneurship for the Future) project, led by Professor Henrietta Moore and funded via the ESRC’s Global Challenges Research Fund. She has also worked on a range of contract research projects, including a long-standing collaboration with Anglian Water and the UK’s Infrastructure Client Group.

Cost: free